A majority of contemporary motor vehicles including automobile sedans and "light utility vehicles" (hereinafter, "LUV", such as Jeep Cherokee, Ford Bronco, GMC Suburban, etc) are ordinarily equipped with a safety provision which enables a driver to establish a condition whereby the rear doors of these "4-door" vehicle types can be set so as to not be releasable from within the passenger compartment by rear seat occupants. The underlying "good sense" logical intent for this provision is to allow a parent to preset the latch on the rear doors to a state where a child riding in the rear seat can not accidentally--or willfully--release the door latch, open the door and risk falling out of the automobile, particularly while the automobile is moving. Commonly known as a "child safety lock", "child protection lock", "child security lock" or simply "child-lock", this safety provision has been provided on automobiles and other 4-door vehicles as standard equipment for the past decade or so and its purpose and operation is generally well understood, particularly by parents of young children.
Driving accidents inevitably occur and automobiles are commonly involved in collisions which can lead to unsafe conditions for any passengers remaining in an automobile subsequent to the collision. As a result of this foreknowledge regarding a likelihood for accidents, use of child-locks which have been preset by a driver places rear-seat passengers, irrespective of whether they are children or adults, at extreme risk subsequent to the accident. This occurs because the entrapped rear-seat passenger can not open the rear door and quickly get out of the vehicle before emergency conditions worsen, particularly if fire or explosion threatens the vehicle. The emergency condition is further exacerbated due to the confused state of the entrapped passenger which generally follows an accident's occurrence. Furthermore, the entrapped passenger may suffer shock or injury which thwarts seemingly simple alternative efforts to climb into the front seat and gain egress through the front passenger doors.
1. Field of my Invention
My invention relates to motor vehicles and in particular sedan-style 4-door motor vehicles having a rear seat passenger compartment including rear passenger doors fitted with presettable anti-egress child-lock devices which serve to absolutely deny operability of the rear door's interior door latch release device by the rear seat passenger.
2. Anti-ingress Locking Systems
Motor vehicles have long been equipped with a variety of locks. For example, the ignition of a typical motor vehicle is provided with a uniquely keyed lockset which operates an electric switch that typically turns circuits associated with the ignition portion of the motor on and off, as well as controlling power flow to a variety of accessories included in the vehicle, such as a radio, horn, windshield wipers, heater, etc.
The trunk portion of an automobile such as a Dodge Intripid is ordinarily provided with a keylock which secures the trunk lid to prevent unauthorized entry into the trunk. Similarly, and in many cars a glove compartment is commonly provided with a keylock to thwart pilfering.
Hatchback automobiles (coupes or "3-door" body styles) are usually provided with a keylock on the hatch cover to block access without a key. On commonplace LUVs such as the Jeep Cherokee, Ford Expedition, Mercury Mountaineer, and minivans such as the Chevrolet Venture and Chrysler Caravan a lockset ordinarily secures the rear lift-back door and sliding side-doors, in the case of certain minivans.
Nearly all vehicles, including not only passenger cars such as sedans and coupes, minivans and LUVs, but also trucks, buses and virtually every other vehicle category include passenger door keylocks, at least on the "front" or driver-access doors.
It has been the central purpose for all of the anti-ingress locking devices so far mentioned to embody a mechanical device for securing a door against intruders and thereby serve as a limit to "who" has physical access into a vehicle. Persons without a key are simply locked out, or else entry is forced and illegal. As a convenience to a driver, the locksets in many of the mentioned categories of vehicle having multiple passenger-door anti-ingress lock devices and usually including those with hatchbacks, liftbacks and sliding doors, manufacturers have provided a handy central locking system. The central locking system ordinarily utilizes a motor or solenoid on each (so-equipped) anti-ingress lockset which serves to "Lock" and "unlock" the lockset under control of an electric signal ordinarily controllable at least from the driver's position. Sometimes these central locking systems are elaborated upon by providing "keyless" entry systems, which operate by radio or infrared signals to remotely release or lock the doors, usually by a small handheld actuator device which sends out an encoded wireless signal.
3. Anti-egress Locking Systems
A distinctly separate category of safety oriented locking device for motor vehicles and in particular, "4-door" sedans and similar vehicles having a "back seat" and rear side doors is the now ubiquitous "child security lock" (viz "CHILD LOCK") which is a separate class of anti-egress blocking arrangement that thwarts operation of a door latch handle from the inside of a vehicle by a rear-seat passenger, such as a child. This sort of blocking device is not a key operated lock in a usual sense like that of all of the other heretofore mentioned vehicle locks. It does not lock the vehicle from the outside. It does not prevent unauthorized entry into or use of the vehicle, which is the central intent of all of the keylocks and door locks which I have cited. Instead, the anti-egress CHILD LOCK is singularly intended as an anti-egress safety device solely intended to block unauthorized exit from the rear-seat position of the vehicle.
Rather than being in the class of a key operated locking device, the anti-egress CHILD LOCK is ordinarily operated by a lever or button which is accessible to a driver (e.g., an authorized adult) when the CHILD LOCK equipped (rear) door is ajar. Ordinarily the CHILD LOCK control is located on the outer edge of the rear-passenger door, accessible only when the door is open and fully blocked (by the door jamb) from access by a rear seat passenger when the door is closed. In other words, once the CHILD LOCK is set, the equipped door may only be opened from outside the vehicle using the usual exterior door latch handle. This means that any other class of ingression control locking device, such as the earlier mentioned key-controlled or central locking schemes, must be `unlocked` in order to make the outside door handle operable.
The obscured operation of the child-lock which denies its release (e.g., performing a SET or RESET state change) when the door is closed is exactly the feature which makes the child-lock particularly hazardous in event of an accident. In effect the rear-seat occupants are absolutely entrapped, particularly if the front seat occupants are seriously injured or dead. As a result of this entrapment, the rear seat passengers are at high risk for secondary injury, including death, which may additionally result from fire, explosion or further collision (e.g., a chain-reaction collision) with other vehicles when the accident occurs in a busy traffic setting.
Realize that the child-lock is a narrowly specialized anti-egression safety control device which, while frequently called a lock, this is a misnomer in that it alone provides no protection whatsoever to the safeguarding of the vehicle from unauthorized ingression. Instead the CHILD LOCK is a distinctly separate category of device which acts to disable the interior operability of the rear-door latch handle to restrict vehicle egress to occur only when the rear door is released from the outside ordinarily by a person other than the rear seat passenger by using the exterior door handle. CHILD LOCK devices are intrinsicly manual in operation, having the mentioned lever or button sited in the portion of the rear door fitting into the outer rear door jamb.
4. Safety Considerations
With the advent of my accident responsive CHILD LOCK release adjunct, risk intensive entrapment of rear-seat passengers in an automobile subsequent to an accident is expugnable. It is commonplace that a rear-door CHILD LOCK may be in use thereby denying operation of the door's latch-handle by a rear seat passenger prior to an accident. Once the accident occurs, the CHILD LOCK equipped with my instant invention is promptly and automatically released thereby returning full control of the interior door latch to the rear seat occupant. The CHILD LOCK release enables immediate door unlatching and opening subsequent to the accident, thereby exposing an unencumbered exit portal for the rear seat passenger.
With the urging of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that "all children ride in the back seats of cars with passenger-side air bags" ("A New Look at Child-Killing Air Bags", U.S. News & World Report magazine, Nov. 4, 1996, Page 10), more children will undoubtedly be riding in the rear seating area of the typical automobile and most likely, the prudent parent will preset the CHILD LOCK door devices to prevent the child's likelihood for fumbling with the door latch handle and possibly opening the door. They then become potential victims of entrapment if an accident occurs.
As the USN&WR article notes, "last-year . . . they passenger side air bags! have killed at least 28 children". Moving the children from the front seat, having a door which will typically open after an accident, to a rear seat in which the only egress possibility is through CHILD LOCK protected doors which will not open after an accident is only moving the potential for death and injury from that of the front seat with the air bag being the cause to the back seat and being helplessly entrapped behind unopenable doors.
Immediately following an accident, considerable risk arises due to a chance for fire or explosion due to spilled fuel and electrical short circuits. As a result of these considerations, immediate evacuation of the wrecked vehicle is imperative. Safety dictates that passengers must not be bound into the vehicle by unnecessarily locked doors which may slow-down, if not block, their safe and quick exit from the vehicle.
5. Emergency Child-lock Release
Rear seat passengers are the most apt to become unnecessarily trapped, due to preset CHILD LOCK devices which inhibit door latch release by the rear seat passengers and block possible egress. Heretofore, it is obvious that even minor injury can quickly escalate into major trauma or even death due to an inability to achieve safe and unencumbered passenger egress through a rear door which is unnecessarily blocked by preset CHILD LOCKS. In other words, the child or other passenger is blocked from using the door latch and simply getting out and away from the vehicle before it bursts into flames, explodes or is struck by another vehicle.
Once the accident occurs, the child lock mechanism equipped with my instant invention is promptly and automatically released thereby returning full control of the interior door latch to the rear seat occupant. The CHILD LOCK release enables immediate door unlatching and opening subsequent to the accident, thereby exposing an unencumbered exit portal for the rear seat passenger.
6. Rear Door Lock Conflicts
Rear doors of sedan style automobiles and other CHILD LOCK equipped motor vehicles offer a serious conflict between the two previously mentioned categories of locking systems.
The ANTI-INGRESS door lock system which is intended to keep persons on the outside of the car from getting into the car (for whatever purpose) retains an ability for persons entrapped inside the car to still get out after an accident. In a usual vehicle, the inside door handle ordinarily remains operative and is available to release the door's latch. As a result the rear seat passenger can always get out.
The ANTI-EGRESS door lock system characterized by the CHILD LOCK type of latch disablement device is, on the other hand, solely intended to block the back-seat passenger from getting out of the vehicle. The inside door latch handle is simply made inoperative and ineffectual. On the other hand, in absence of the separately acting ANTI-INGRESS locking system being set or `locked`, any person on the outside of the vehicle may readily open the rear door and gain entry. This external opening of the door is accomplished concurrent with the CHILD LOCK device being set or `locked` to deny exit possibility for the rear seat occupant. In other words, an intruder can get in while the rear seat passenger can not get out.
A worst case scenario occurs when both the CHILD LOCK is set and the DOOR LOCK is set albeit such `settings` are separately performed functions. Under this condition, no one on the inside of or on the outside of the automobile can operate the rear door's latch and open the door. In a post-accident setting this sort of `double-lockup` by the two separate locking system functions can make quick and efficient entry by emergency personnel virtually impossible even when the entrapped rear seat occupant is conscious and would ordinarily be able to release the door latch or open the door for help, if only the CHILD LOCK was not set and at least the interior latch handle regained its door release function.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 5,574,315 on Nov. 12, 1996, I have taught a sensing of an accident involving a vehicle which immediately upon collision, serves to roll-down or open the vehicle windows and electrically unlock each DOOR LOCK on the vehicle. What is clearly construed by this definition, as shown in the patent's specification and drawings, is that the unlocking of the door portions principally involves the key operated anti-access door lock controls. Remember that, even the rear seat doors of a typical vehicle are indirectly, albeit securely, controlled by a keylock at least on the driver-position door. In other words, using a central electric locking system or else pushing down the "button" on a mechanically locked rear door serves primarily to restrict vehicle entry to a person having a key and thereby blocks unauthorized ingress into the vehicle. In the '315 patent's claims I mention an anti-egression control apparatus which is "presettable to inhibit manual release of a usually rear position interior door latch" only as an adjunct to the central theme of the patent, that being to maximize overall vehicle egression possibilities subsequent to an accident.
Realize that the CHILD LOCK device portion of my '315 patent as described in this teaching is unequivocally partitionable as a separate inventive subject since the CHILD LOCK serves a totally different functional purpose from that of the DOOR LOCK. The CHILD LOCK serves as a safety oriented exit control device and is not intended as a security oriented lockup device which blocks entry into the vehicle by an outsider. More distinctly it is an interior latch control device which promotes rear seat passenger safety (viz child safety) by denying unauthorized or (more to the point) unsafe operability of the inside door latch handle by the passenger.